Goldfish Question?

12 years ago

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this part of the forum, usually posting on the gardening side. I recently got a 10gal tank with a filter (one of the kits from petsmart) and two goldfish, a fantail and a shubunkin. At first I was worried because the shubunkin (Casper) seemed like he could swim faster than the fantail (Harold) and I was scared he'd always beat him out for the food. The petstore said it would be fine, so I decided to give it a try since I really liked both fish (very personable, swim right over demanding food and being cute!)

Anyway, since being home in my tank for a little over a week the opposit has happened - the fantail is way better at eating, and gobbles up the food before poor Casper can get much (Casper also is not good at eating, he grabs the flake, then spits most of it out, goes up to eat and misses the piece of food he was lunging at...).

Today I woke up to find Casper laying at the bottom of the tank, he got up for feeding time, swam around a bit, but then lay back down. I had seen Harold chase him before a little, do you thinking Harold is driving him to exhaustion or hurting him? Is he getting enough food?

I love both fish, Harold is a great personable fish and will swim up and grab flakes from my hand even though I've only had him a little over a week (I don't want to make him out to be a bad guy, lol)

So anyway, what should I do? Will they work it out amongst themselves like the woman at Petco said?

Thanks!

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Comments (3)

albert_135 　 39.17°N 119.76°W 4695ft.
12 years ago
Were it me I would isolate the shubunkin and try and figure out what is wrong. This behavior is not consistent with my experience with shubunkin. I have tried to mix them with fancy fantails in the pond outside and eventually always wind up removing the fantails as the shubunkin seem to take over. The fantails survive but just don't thrive as they seem to in a tank.

This is just my experience and otherwise uninformed.
esther_b
12 years ago
This is not normal behavior. How big are the goldfish? The rule of thumb is, 1" of fish per gallon of water in the tank. Goldfish excrete huge quantities of ammonia in their urine. Do you have a big enough tank, do you have an adequate power filter, did you cycle the tank to make sure that there's enough beneficial ammonia-breaking-down bacteria in there? I would also check the pH and ammonia concentrations with a test kit. You should be changing 15% of the tank water every week, replacing it with aged or dechlorinated water.

Getting fish at Petco may also be part of the problem. They don't always have healthy fish (more the exception than the rule, from what I've seen) and their staff is usually totally ignorant and will tell you anything, whether it's true or not.

Just 2 fish should not be so competitive about food. Fish only need a very small amount of food daily anyway. The most common mistake of aquarium newbies is to over-feed. Fish will just eat til they burst.
wandering_willow
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks for your input!

Here's an update:

They are about an inch to an inch and a half, or were when I bought them, the fantail, Harold, seems to have already grown a bit. I had petco test the water before I got the fish, and they said it was good. I just had them test it again this morning and they said it was still good - Ammonia = 0, Nitrite = 0-.25, PH = 7.4 I have a filter that seems good? It certainly creates a lot of current... It came with the 10gal tank. I do like 50% water changes every week.

I was away for a couple days for thanksgiving and put in a small amount of vacation food, which seems to have been good for Casper because when I came back on Saturday he was looking plumper and more active. However just now, as I was writing this update, I just watched Harold (fantail) slam Caspar into the wall of the tank and then push him to the floor where Casper lay on his side for a little - it was really scary. When I went over he got up, but then swam back to the corner he sat in when I got him and has been sitting on the bottom since...

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Thanks!